Above the Fold in Web Designing and its Benefits

Well, if your answer is “User Engagement”, let me tell you that you are absolutely right. You have hit the bull’s eye. However, this is only one part of the whole story. Knowing that user engagement is the most crucial factor in any website or online business success leads you to know-where. You got to know how to achieve this.

So let’s begin with this.

As a matter of fact, there are numerous points on which you have to work so as to have high user engagement for your site. Today we focus on one of the important areas which leads to high user engagement and that is Web Designing. Moreover, here we deal with one of the key elements in web designing. Here, we analyze the role played by “Above the Fold” in fostering user engagement.

Web designing in itself is a tremendously important element as your visitors are highly influenced by the layout, design, look and feel, and usability of your site. Your website design is the first impression that you put before your visitors. If the visitors does not like your website, or it is difficult for them to navigate, they simply will close it down. And that means a lost opportunity. Here in, comes the role of “Above the fold”. It relates to the layout of your website.

But what exactly do we mean by, above the fold?

Above the fold is nothing but the area of a website that is visible to the users / visitors without having to use the scroll button. It is the end point on browsers after which the content becomes hidden. It is the position on the web page where you to scroll to view the content of a website. The term originated from newspaper as only the top half of the front page is visible to the customers passing by the news stand or vendors. The newspaper tries to put and accommodate the top stories of the day on the top half of the front page so as to entice and lead the customers for purchasing the newspaper.

Above the fold is important in websites too. Suppose you put only Ads above the fold, and have the features, the navigation, buy and social media buttons below the fold, do you think that visitors will get impressed from your website? Today when they are millions of websites, and Internet has become the most potent channel for marketing and business, everything depends on how well you position and promote your website. If important elements and Call-To-Action are placed below the fold, they would be simply ignored.

As statistics show, only 23% of visitors scroll on their first visit to a website. So, you see that above the fold does play a very important role in furnishing user engagement. Once you know this, you got to be aware what elements you need to have above the fold. Well, you simply cannot have everything above the fold, though you can always design a website in which you showcase everything above the hold. But this is perhaps not recommended these days when screen sizes is not fixed, and scrolling has become much easier than before with high prevalence of wheel based mouse.

To begin with you must have the navigation buttons / menu above the hold. The Navigation menu should be clearly visible and should be easy to use so that your visitors can easily surf any of your webpage or section of your website. Then you got to have the Social Share Buttons together with Buy Now button above the fold. This would facilitate Call to Action.

And if you like to go for email marketing then you got to position your email op-tin form also above the fold at the right places. Plus a very important part your content should also feature above the fold so that visitors can see and read instantly what they were looking for. Together if you are selling some product or services, its features, images, slide show or video link must feature above the fold.

Having said that, whatever elements you place above the fold should be well positioned and should make life easy for your visitors. It is not stuffing above the fold area with information and other elements which is hard to comprehend and make it difficult to understand. You would never want to bewilder and confuse your visitors. In this context, you should also make it sure not to place too many advertisements or banner Ads above the fold as they consume space which you can utilize for placing other elements. However, placing Related Posts or Popular Posts links above the fold can be a good idea.

So, you have to make it sure that Above the Fold space is utilized intelligently and smartly for the good of your visitors and ultimate success of your website. It is not like that people are not scrolling a web page. According to a research study, about 65% of visitors do like to scroll below the fold, but they do that only when they find your website useful for their purpose. As already said, above the fold puts a first impression for your website and it helps to entice your visitors on further scrolling.

Also from the SEO point of view, Above the Fold is important as many search engines (like Google) have incorporated it in their algorithms. So if you only showcase advertisements above the fold it can be harmful for your website rankings on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page).

Thus by utilizing “Above The fold” space you can definitely increase your users’ engagement and thus can promote your website to a large number of people over the Internet. Above the fold, gives you the opportunity to attract and retain your visitors fulfilling your goal of successful online business.

Comments

I think the fold does matter – but it’s not the be-all-and-end-all. Website visitors and search engines alike are attracted to website design that places key content above the fold. We should certainly bear this in mind as an important factor in WordPress website design. This should be balanced against other issues – one part of a much bigger picture.

Page layout is one of many website design elements that can affect usefulness for both visitors and search engines.
Google’s algorithms can grade the type of content that is placed on a web page and determine whether or not the most valuable content appears above the fold or not. As a result, well-designed, high value websites have seen an improvement in page rank while sites that are filled with advertisements in highly visible above the fold areas have lost ranking accordingly. BTW: I think the remainder of your guidelines is great.